How to Use your Social Media Platform Right
Online presence is crucial to nurturing and growing a business, as the Internet is becoming an increasingly important part of everyone’s day. Businesses have multiple channels to take advantage of when going online, of which websites are, arguably, the most important. Another necessary channel is social media. In the same way that having a website cannot be snubbed, you cannot bypass building a solid social media presence if your business aims for the top spot.
Brand Awareness
According to We Are Social and Hootsuite, in 2021, the total number of social media users will pass the iconic milestone of 4.5 billion users! Not being present on those platforms makes you invisible to those users.
Posting on social media makes it easier for people to interact with your brand, including your employees, who can share your updates and reach new people in their networks.
Customer Listening
With the expansion of social media, getting insights directly from your customers has never been this simple! By simply tracking your mention, keywords, comments, and more, you can effortlessly know what users think about your brand, get feedback, and even ideas for improvements and new products!
Keep your ears open and an eye out for your social media accounts. You never know what you might come across!
Connect on a Personal Level
Listening is good, but communicating and interacting with your community is even better! Create a strong community by asking questions, participating in discussions, answering queries, etc., and developing your brand online.
Also, social media allow you to be more “human” than other channels such as websites. With social media, you can share jokes, memes, and Behind-The-Scenes videos, which will connect with your users and strengthen your brand’s community.
Stay Relevant
For a business, knowing what is going on in the world is vital, and social media are free ways to keep track of trending topics. Being active on social media means that you can take part in trends.
Designing a Social Media Marketing Strategy
We previously laid tips for you to create your online presence strategy:
- Set Online/Social Media Strategy Goals
- Identify your target audience demographics
- Design your profiles
- Separate your social media platforms
- Don’t over-advertise
- Keep track of your industry trends
By following those steps, you have a solid foundation for your strategy. However, it might not be in-depth enough.
Let’s dig into point 4 and find out how to use each social medium optimally.
Common Points across Social Media Platforms
Before investigating how each social media is different, let’s focus on what is similar.
Consistency
One of the most important tips, if you want to see results, is consistency.
Although each social media platform has a different algorithm, it is crucial when designing the social media strategy to be posting often enough. On social networks, your business will be competing with numerous others to get noticed. You do not want to be less seen than them.
Keep a rigorous pace of posting, but beware of “too much” posting! Spamming your audience will only result in them unfollowing and being annoyed with your brand. Moreover, although you should keep the posts coming regularly, favour putting out quality over quantity.
Quality
Although consistency is necessary, putting out poor content because you have to is a bad idea.
Favour quality over quantity, even if it means posting a bit less.
Interactions
We call them “Social” media for a reason!
On social media, users/followers will ask questions, and share feedback and their opinion, do not ignore them! By showing your business human and social sides, you can build a community of loyal followers.
Relevance
Keep an eye out for trending topics on each social media, and post about them!
Pop culture is indispensable in helping your business create a more “human” image.
Sure, you should keep your posts consistent with your business’s brand image, but if a relevant topic is trending, make use of the opportunity by using the hashtags.
Tracking
All platforms offer ways of tracking your performance; make use of those. By knowing which type of posts works best, you can adjust your strategy. Moreover, it is relevant to investigate at what time your posts are doing the best so you can calibrate your game plan to hit the bull’s eye consistently.
Test and Adjust
Of course, each business is different, and, consequently, your audience will be different from other businesses. You will need time to understand when your audience is active, what they like the most, and how they interact with you and other users.
Test different strategies to fully understand what works best for your business and adjust when you discover new opportunities! In a similar fashion that Rome was not built in a day, you cannot grow a loyal online community in the twinkling of an eye.
Separating your Social Media Platforms
Each social media platform is different. They all attract different audiences looking for original content. It is crucial to understand which social media platform attracts which audience. Indeed, it is your role to choose the most fitting one for your business.
Surprised? Your business does not need to be active on all imaginable platforms! Managing one platform is already time- and resource-consuming; imagine having to manage a dozen of them!
Favour quality over quantity.
The King of Social Media: Facebook
With nearly 3 billion monthly users, Facebook trumps all other social media.
Why Facebook?
If your target audience is older, you should consider using Facebook. Indeed, although the platform is more or less evenly split between Generation Z, Millenials, and Generation X, seniors are the fastest-growing demographic on the social network.
What should you post on Facebook?
The posts generating the most engagement on Facebook are posts:
- Asking simple but engaging questions
- Sharing tips
- Posting Behind-The-Scene pics and videos
- Telling stories
- Showing product pics
- Sharing relevant infographics
- Sharing the company’s blog posts
- Organizing contests and giveaways
- …
Of course, depending on your business, some of those posts might not fit, and others might be more engaging. It is of interest to test it on your account!
At what frequency?
Facebook’s algorithm was designed to favour friends and family’s content on one’s feed, therefore, it is sometimes hard for businesses to breakthrough. A mistake to avoid is to post a lot daily.
For accounts with less than 10000 followers, research by HubSpot showed that posting more than once per day drastically decreases the clicks received.
Thus, as you start your Facebook account, avoid posting more than once per day. Five posts per week is a good number.
The Unavoidable: Twitter
Why Twitter?
Twitter is helpful for all businesses if you can use it right. Indeed, Twitter allows businesses to interact easily with their followers. It is the ideal platform for creating a loyal community.
Twitter also helps in the visibility of your business on Search Engines!
What should you post on Twitter?
Twitter relies heavily on interactions, thus focusing on posts that:
- Ask questions
- Use polls
- Are visual
- Show your “human side” with jokes, memes, and gifs
- Share company and industry updates
- Are threads with relevant tips
- …
At what frequency?
Because of Twitter’s algorithm, tweets have short shell life. To stay relevant and on your audience’s feed, tweet multiple times a day.
The Visual Maestro: Instagram
Why Instagram?
Contrary to Twitter, Instagram does not make sense for all businesses. Answer those two questions to know whether it makes sense for your business to create an Instagram account:
- Is my product visual?
Indeed, the core of Instagram is visual posts (pics or videos); for businesses without attractive visual products, it might not make sense to be active on Instagram.
- Is my target audience active on Instagram?
As opposed to Facebook, Instagram demographics are younger, with the majority being between 18 and 34 years old. The distribution between male and female users is more or less equal, with 49.3% of the users being female, according to Statista.
If you can give a positive answer to those two questions, then Instagram is helpful for your business!
What should you post on Instagram?
As mentioned, the core of Instagram posts is visuals. Consequently, good visuals are essential to driving engagement with your account.
Your posts should:
- Showcase your products through high-quality pictures and videos (IGTV and Reels)
- Share your Behind-The-Scenes
- Repost user-generated content
- Share contests and giveaways
- Partner with influencers
- …
Instagram is also well-known for its “stories.” Those ephemeral pictures and videos can show spontaneous moments of the day in your business while allowing you to ask questions to your followers and get suggestions. Use them!
At what frequency?
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, suggested that two posts per week and two stories per day are exemplary to build a community on the platform.
Professionals Meet Point: LinkedIn
Why LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is an excellent way of making your company known by professionals in the industry. Especially for B2B businesses, having a strong LinkedIn presence is crucial as it allows you to connect with other companies and professionals that might be interested in collaborating with you.
LinkedIn, like Twitter, is an excellent way to help your brand’s visibility through SEO.
What should you post on LinkedIn?
Since LinkedIn is a social media for professionals, the quality of the content must be premium. Here are some contents that perform well on LinkedIn:
- Long posts (blog posts) with a catchy start
- Videos (interviews)
- Tips
- Third-party content (sharing other sources)
- Company news
- …
At what frequency?
As LinkedIn is a social media for professionals, it is advised to post on business days: five days per week, once a day.
The Rising Star: TikTok
Why TikTok?
TikTok sees about 1.2 billion users per month, a considerable opportunity for any business.
TikTok is often seen as a “youngster” app, but do not let it fool you: it holds a sizeable population of people over 25 years old.
Of course, young people constitute a substantial part of the platform’s population, with 43% of users between 18 and 24 years old. Still, a non-negligible 32% of users are between 25 and 34 years old.
57% of users are female.
What should you post on Tiktok?
TikTok is THE platform embodying the concept of “going viral.” If you are active on TikTok, you want to go viral regularly by posting about trending topics, using trending sounds and hashtags.
Be it Behind-The-Scenes, memes, dances, or product presentations, always keep in mind that you want to go viral. You also want to interact with your target audience by being visible on other influencers’ accounts. Considering the young population of TikTok, try to show a human, funny and relatable side. Indeed, as opposed to LinkedIn, you do not need to take yourself too seriously on TikTok.
At what frequency?
audiosocket advises, when starting on TikTok, to post one to three times a day. Famous TikTok content creators might post more than ten times. However, when you have less than 1 million followers, it is not optimal to do so. Once again, focus on quality over quantity!
The Underdog: WhatsApp
Why WhatsApp?
According to Hootsuite, WhatsApp is the users’ favourite app, thus your business MUST be active on it. WhatsApp is a good way of providing fast and personalised customer service. It is also a safe way to message your customers.
What Else?
There exist various other social media platforms with different audiences and purposes such as Reddit and Pinterest. When planning for your social media marketing strategy, carefully consider where your audience and competitors are active and how the social media platform’s purpose can serve your business.
Being active on as many platforms as possible is not always the best strategy. fsb advises to choose 2 or 3 social media platforms and manage them very well.